The XII Odesur Asunción 2022 Games, which will bring together 4,698 athletes from 15 countries in the region, will be formally inaugurated this Saturday with the opening ceremony to be held at the traditional Defensores del Chaco stadium in the Paraguayan capital.
The sports program, which will run until October 15, is made up of 34 sports (53 disciplines) that will award a total of 1,336 medals (410 gold, 410 silver and 516 bronze) at the end of the 416 scheduled competitions in 38 scenarios of the cities of Asunción, Luque, Encarnación and Itaipú.
Half of the sports will grant quotas for the Santiago 2023 Pan American Games: aquatics -including skiing-, athletics, handball, boxing, bowling, cycling, equestrian, field hockey, karate, speed skating, rugby 7, squash, tennis, table tennis, archery, shooting and triathlon.
The other activities on the Asunción 2022 calendar will be chess, badminton, basketball, bowls, canoeing, fencing, bodybuilding, soccer, gymnastics, golf, judo, weights, wrestling, paddle tennis, rowing, skateboarding, taekwondo, sailing and volleyball.
The 15 countries that will take part in the Games will be Argentina, Aruba, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Curaçao, Ecuador, Guyana, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay and Venezuela.
Argentina will attend the event with 592 athletes (289 women and 303 men) who will participate in the 36 sports and in all modalities except for 5×5 basketball and men’s indoor volleyball.
The contingent sets a new participation record, surpassing the largest group (545 athletes) that had participated in Medellín 2010.
President Alberto Fernández bid farewell to the national delegation on Thursday during a ceremony held at the Cenard, in the company of the Minister of Public Works, Gabriel Katopodis, and the Secretary of Sports, Inés Arrondo.
Also present were the Minister of Foreign Affairs, International Trade and Worship, Santiago Cafiero; the head of the Athletes Commission, Paula Pareto, and the head of mission of the Argentine Olympic Committee for these Games, Carlos Ferrea.
The president presented the Argentine flag to the field hockey player Rocío Sánchez Moccia and the paddler Agustín Vernice, who will lead the delegation at the opening ceremony that will begin at 9:00 p.m. in the Defensores del Chaco.
Sánchez Moccia, 34, is a historic member of Las Leonas with more than 250 international matches and dozens of medals, including silver medals from the London 2012 and Tokyo 2020 Games, plus the recent World Cup 2022.
For his part, Vernice, 27, is a double Pan American champion in Lima 2019 and an Olympic finalist in Tokyo.
“It is a pride to represent my country,” said the captain who will debut in the South American competition with the mission of leading Las Leonas to the fourth gold medal, third in a row after winning it in Santiago 2014 and Cochabamba 2018.
Vernice, in turn, highlighted: “It is a pleasure to be the national flag bearer, but above all a great responsibility.”
Argentina topped the medal table in seven of the editions played so far: La Paz 1978, Rosario 1982, Santiago 1986, Lima 1990, Valencia (Venezuela) 1994, Cuenca (Ecuador) 1998 and Buenos Aires 2006.
It was third in the 2002 Brazil Games, held in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Curitiba and Belém, and fourth in the last three chapters: Medellín 2010, Santiago 2014 and Cochabamba 2018.
The Asunción 2022 Games will be inaugurated in fact before the official ceremony with the dispute of the first activity: skateboarding, male and female street modality, to be held tomorrow at the Asunción skatepark.
The TyC Sports channel will broadcast live the opening party and all the competition days with 13 hours live through its different screens (TyC Sports, TyC Sports 2 and TyC Sports Play).
Source: Telam Agency
